


There Where the Power Lies

by four_tea_two



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Hell, M/M, Original Character(s), Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-25 23:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/644237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/four_tea_two/pseuds/four_tea_two
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel's assignment was true and simple. It was tattooed onto his brain in the blackest ink, there when he closed his eyes, dark and heavy on the inside of his eyelids.<br/>In which nine angels venture into Hell to raise the Righteous Man, and only one comes out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Castiel's assignment was true and simple. It was tattooed onto his brain in the blackest ink, there when he closed his eyes, dark and heavy on the inside of his eyelids.

_Raise the Righteous Man from Perdition._

Pouring a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent into a human vessel is something Castiel has not had need for since times antediluvian. The pins and needles that creep down his arms and up his legs and over his scalp are unlike anything he has ever felt before. He is super-aware of his heart beating steadily, his lungs shifting under his breast, his insides twisting and undulating. Messy. Human. He can feel Jimmy Novak beating somewhere behind his eyes. Castiel blinks and the feeling vanishes.

Castiel is not sure what to make of it all. He barely has time to flex his fingers before he hears his sister's voice humming inside his head. Ambriel's voice is soft as a feather and as piercing as thousands of volts of electricity:

_We are ready, Castiel. Join us._

Castiel is at her side before the echo of her words has faded. They stand in an empty field, amber with wheat and fading sunlight. Castiel senses his brethren standing around him before he sees them. Their energy is barely contained by their human forms. Castiel can only hope they have chosen the right vessels for this journey. He makes his eyes meet each pair of the angels standing around him, slipping uncertain under human flesh. There are eight of them: Ambriel, Omael, Umabel, Paschar, Verchiel, Haziel, Liwet and Oriphiel.

Ambriel is in a petite blonde thing with expansive curly blonde hair. Her pink lip is chapped and held between two teeth while the rest of her body stands rigid, obviously a muscle memory. The vessel can't be more than twelve or thirteen. The fire in Ambriel's eyes emboldens Castiel. As much as he doesn't want to admit it, Castiel is afraid.

Omael is in an elderly Asian man, thin and well-dressed. The suit is grey slate, a mirror of the vessel's hair. A bright silk scarf, red and pink and orange, is tied around his neck. Omael looks ready. He looks tough. Castiel can only hope it is enough.

Umabel is in a housewife, soft at the edges in khakis and an emerald turtleneck, chestnut hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her lips are set hard and Castiel knows the angel behind that face. He has sat in silence with Umabel in heaven and looked down upon Earth. He has seen her take many vessels and do as she is commanded, always without error. He has seen her smite and he has seen her save. In a time when few angels walked the earth she was here. She has loved humanity the way God intended. Castiel trusts her to the ends of any plane.

Paschar is in a Hispanic man, mid-thirties, wearing a blue jumpsuit. Perhaps he was an electrician. Castiel is not sure if he trusts Paschar. Paschar loves God but he is indifferent toward humanity. Castiel cannot help but see a flicker of their brother Lucifer in him.

Verchiel is in a priest, balding and tall. His gaze is authoritative. Verchiel is the only one of them who has been to hell before. Verchiel's wings were burned black by the fires. The other angels call it beautiful.

Liwet is in a dark, curvy thing whom Castiel knows is not of this era. He appreciates her care in choosing a vessel, combing through years of the devout instead of the first half-believing churchgoer to show themselves. Her vessel's clothing places her square in the 1920s, and when Castiel concentrates he can smell 1928 in her hair.

Haziel is in a woman with dark skin. He can see African dirt under her fingernails. She's dressed in faded denim shorts and her hair is cropped close. Haziel is oldest of these angels, even older than Verchiel. She has a sense of humor Castiel has never understood, but he respects her without doubt.

Oriphiel is in a teenage boy with dyed black hair and skinny jeans. Castiel feels a deep affection for Oriphiel. Oriphiel is the youngest angel here, one of the last God created before leaving heaven. Oriphiel does not remember a time before humanity. Castiel has traveled through Heaven with Oriphiel, sharing his secret game of finding the best heavens of humanity. Castiel does not know where this urge to explore comes from, but Oriphiel embraces it. The two have walked through eternal sunrises, dusky evenings in warm rooms, nights under the stars in empty fields. Castiel wants to know what it all means- why do humans love these things? Why do they hold onto them when the rest of their memory has faded? Oriphiel is content just to experience. Castiel sees more humanity in Oriphiel than any of his other brothers.

These eight angels and Castiel, these nine in all, have the same mission branded in the deepest part of themselves.

_Raise the Righteous Man from Perdition._

Haziel clears her throat and speaks, her voice heavy and rich, her tongue moving around thick words. "We are, this nine, this nonet, here united in a singular goal." Castiel feels the pulse of those six words deep within. "We will enter Hell, we will journey through the flames, we will press onward and deeper until we have come to Hell's core. There will be the Righteous Man, Dean Winchester."

Dean Winchester. The name rings like a bell in this field, the only sound the soft rush of wind through wheat. Castiel feels the name Dean Winchester sinking into him, coming over him like thick molasses. Dean Winchester, the Righteous Man. All at once Castiel can feel a history sinking into his bones, a study of Dean Winchester as understood by Haziel, a flash of father brother duty love that feels like something Castiel already knows. It feels like himself. The other angels bow their heads as they receive Haziel's impartation.

"We will pull the chains from the Righteous Man's body, or, if necessary, ease the whip from his hands. We will cradle his body and bear him back up to Earth, remake him cell by cell. Then, we will leave him to pull himself from the dirt and fulfill his destiny." Castiel can feel the angels around him nod. "We can only hope to get to him before he breaks the first seal. But Hell is hard," Haziel's eyes cast briefly over Verchiel, "and though Dean Winchester is righteous he cannot hold out forever. Whatever has happened, he must raise him. He must return to Earth. Our brother Verchiel has entered hell before. He will be our guide and our adviser. Verchiel, I bid you speak."

 

Verchiel's eyes are piercing as he speaks. They are the eyes of a being that has seen much. "Hell is not something one can be prepared for. Every horror you can imagine parades in front of you without shame. There is no hope there, there is not even resignation. There is only pain, and fear. Its punishments are as varied as the rewards of heaven, perhaps even more so. There are pits of lightning-bright lava and caves of pitch, chains and spikes and flesh turned against flesh. You will see things no holy being was meant to see." Verchiel paused to draw breath he did not need. "There is no preparing you for that. I can only provide you with facts. In Hell, you are cut off. The voices that are as part of you as your grace will be cut off. You will be, for the first time, truly alone. Even the connection between us nine will be dim and little more than human telepathy. Teh voices will not be the only thing lost. The ability to heal will be greatly lessened. Smiting demons will take much energy, and there will be too many demons to fight. Every wound you obtain will be felt in your true form. Your vessel serves as a kind of cloak, a way of passing less obviously through perdition. It will not exist in the same way it does on Earth. Not only will your vessel bleed, but you will bleed ichor, your true blood. Your wings will scorch the moment you pass through Hell's gate. The deeper you go, the worse it will get. My brothers, sisters," Verchiel pauses and his brow crinkles in concern, "This is only my experience of the first level. We will be going much deeper. The ninth level is where Hell will keep the Righteous Man."

Unease passes through the eight angels, all Hell-fire virgins. This they suspected, but hearing it stated plainly by fleshy tongue is a different matter altogether. Though this is a mission they have accepted with their whole being, they cannot help but fear the flames of Hell. Verchiel continues his lecture, and the angels are rapt.

"Each level is worse than the last. They have no theme or focus, as certain human poets would suggest, but partake in all sins equally. Time is different in each level; in some it is frenzied, in some it is dragged long. In some nooks of the ninth level, it is said a century could pass in Earth's minute. The Righteous Man will likely have already been there decades by the time we reach him. There is no knowing how long it will take us. The most important rule is to not part. We cannot lose each other in that depraved place. The path, I am sure, will twist and turn and conspire against us. There will be temptation and coercion and attacks by creatures innumerable. There will be places hidden to us. I am warning you all, they will try to take you." Verchiel spoke with heavy knowledge. "They will try to make you stay. Do not listen to them. Do not give in. Remember the holiness of your mission and let it be comfort to you. Nothing they can give you can outshine heaven. Nothing."

Castiel knew Verchiel's tale, one not as old as the tale of Lucifer but ancient all the same. Verchiel had set out to save his brother Dardariel, who had disappeared into the pit when he was beset by demons. Verchiel had been the first and only angel to brave Hell by choice, and the only angel still existing who had been. He had plunged into it swiftly, and was mobbed by the damned. Legend says that he fought his way through much of Hell's first level before he encountered Dardariel and found him fallen, turned to wicked ways, and Verchiel was forced to strike him down. Even in the heat of that place Verchiel had held Dardariel as he died, and had seen the repenetance and purity in his eyes. Verchiel then had borne his body up from the pit and into Heaven, where his body now lies as a twisted old tree in Joshua's garden, a symbol of salvation to all those who repent their wrongs. Verchiel was an anomaly, and while respected by the other angels he was also questioned. Castiel privately sympathized with Verchiel. Had Oriphiel wandered into some dark place, Castiel knew he would do anything to get him back.

It scared him.

Haziel raised her arms. "Brothers, sisters, this is our fate. We go forth to seek the Righteous Man. Are you ready?"

A chorus of "yes, sister" echoed against the emptiness of the field. In the distance, Castiel spied a farmhouse, its windows glowing gold with electric lights. He is doing this for them, he thinks. He is going to save humanity and stop the apocalypse.

He is also doing it for Dean Winchester.

As Haziel recites the spell, raw Enochian power spilling from her brown lips, Castiel gazes skyward. The stars are bright and shining in the night, like slivers of grace scattered across blackened wings. He feels the white feathers of his own wings tremble invisible in the breeze. He commits their feeling to memory, as he knows they will never be the same. Castiel can feel the ground opening beneath him, and the cool of night is suddenly permeated by a smothering heat. The sky is still twinkling above like a joke, or maybe a question, when Castiel feels a sinking in the pit of his stomach. His eyes fly shut as he is suddenly pulled deeper than he has ever been before.

When they open again, he is in Hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first multi-chapter fic, so i'd love a review or some criticism. Thanks!


	2. The Gate and The Vestibule

**The Gate**

The heat is dry and dusty, like a desert. It takes a moment for Castiel to blink through it and see around him. The nine of them are standing on flat, dry packed earth, a mere meter from a tall, stone archway inscribed in Enochian. From the archway extends a tall stone wall, as far as the eye can see in either direction. Castiel turns- behind them is more dry wasteland.

Haziel stands in front of him, her blade peeking out from under her sleeve, her thumb against the tip. She steps forward and looks up, reading the inscription. Castiel looks, but only for a moment. The deep cuts in the stone well with the ichor of angels, congealed a piss-yellow. The last sentence plays through Castiel's mind as he retches at the blasphemy of his brother's blood on so unholy an altar- "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Around him his siblings react much the same. Only Verchiel does not shudder. He simply bows his head.

Haziel is standing a hairsbreadth away from Hell's gate, her fingertips playing over some sort of force-field. “Once we enter,” she says, “Heaven and its power will be cut off to us. This energy does its best to keep anything from getting out- the way back will be painful.” Haziel strokes the field once more, as a lion tamer might stroke a beast. “Come on,” she says, and then steps through. Castiel follows.

 

**The Vestibule**

Beyond the gate is the same heat, an ever-present burning that would blister the skin of a lesser being. The sky is reddish everywhere, with rolling dark clouds like smoke or demons above. Castiel takes a step forward and finds the ground is moving of its own accord. Looking down, he sees his shiny black shoe is pressed into the cheek of a squirming human. The entire ground is made of them, limbs and faces and rib cages, pressing upward and undulating in a horrible attempt to free themselves from the tangle. Castiel can see where they have clawed themselves open on each others' fingernails, where their hair has tangled together and knotted them in place, where their protruding bones have hooked onto others'. They are pale and soft and smell faintly of lake mud and rot. The site of this fleshy ocean has no comparison. Ahead, Castiel sees Haziel beckoning. He trudges through the mass of bodies, his feet occasionally slipping through gore, intestine or blood-slick skin, sometimes sticking in the crook of a bent-backwards elbow or knee. Broken fingers claw helplessly at his soles. Castiel thinks if easing their pain but when he reaches out for heaven's power it is gone, and he is grasping at nothing. He feels the dim glow of his siblings around him like a fever-dream, but no more. Castiel tries to put it out of his mind. There are too many anyway, he thinks. To ease the pain of one would not make a difference.

He believes that as hard as he can as he looks down into what was once a young girls' eyes, and they look as glassy and glazed as those of a fish at market. She pulls her twisted body back down into the fray, and he watches until her toes have been swallowed up by shadow.

Castiel arrives at Haziel's side before the others do. The undulating human bodies have given way to a kind of shore, a beach of tiny white bones, brittle and crunching underneath her feet. Castiel sees they are the bones of infants and thanks God that at least they do not have to experience this place. At the edge of the shore, where Haziel stands, grey-black water laps. _This must be the Acheron,_ Castiel thinks, and he begins to question all the stories about hell he discounted as myth.. It seems to reach with eldritch fingers toward the angels. Extending into the murky lake is a rickety dock made of warped and bleached wood. From the edge of dock, where it meets the shore, protrudes a pole, black and sinister. A little above Castiel's height the pole curves back down, and at the end of it, near-eye level, hangs a beaten iron bell.

Verchiel motions for the other angels to step back. He reaches out with his long priest's fingers and wraps them around a dirty piece of string hanging from the inside of the bell. He rings it and it emits a clanging noise that hurts Castiel's ears. At first, it is silent but for the slick slap of flesh behind them. Then, a skeletal grey hand breaks the surface of the grey water, fingers outstretched, and up from the depths rises a boat, a gondola really, that seems to be almost a living creature, woven out of tendons and beating veins. Standing in the boat- or is he part of the boat?- is a man, waterlogged and old. His skin is warped like the pages of a water-damaged book. His cloak pools at his feet. The man beckons to Verchiel, and then holds out his palm. Expecting.

Castiel looks on with confusion as Verchiel turns back to the field of the damned. He kneels down in the bones of infants and reaches out to touch one of the once-living. It's a girl, with stringy hair and empty eyes. Her naked body arches up to Verchiel, all angles and skin pulled tight. The angel strokes her cheek, and she opens her mouth wide. She's missing most of her teeth, and the ones that remain are rotting black. Verchiel sticks one of his long pale fingers into her mouth and moves aside her tongue, thick with mucous and the stench of death. Underneath is a single silver coin, placed there by some superstitious relative in the hopes that the girl's soul would make it to Charon's boat and across into paradise. Castiel is almost grateful the girl never made it to the docks, because if there is anything he knows it is that the horrors ahead are worse than the ones he's seen here.

Verchiel shines the coin with his finger, a quick circular rub that reveals its gleam. It's a buffalo nickel. “Lucky me,” he says, and it sounds odd coming out of a holy being's mouth, “I got it on the first try.”

Castiel sees the other angels peering in the mouths of other corpses, trying not to get caught in their undead primalistic curiosity, trying not to get sucked into their milky eyes. Castiel turns to a young boy, pale and angelic even in hell, blonde hair partially obscuring where his head has cracked against another and the skin's come off. Castiel kneels down as Verchiel did, ignoring the crunch as he does so. With a touch to the boy's jaw he opens wide and Castiel looks under his tongue for silver. There's nothing, but when Castiel meets the boy's eyes they roll back into his damaged skull and up come two silver dollars, placed on his eyes by a mother, Castiel thinks, definitely a mother. The question in his head _what could a boy do to deserve this_ is answered too readily by his mind, and Castiel is assaulted by images of children killing children, ripping wings off birds and driving swiss army knives into muscle. He takes the two silver dollars and hands one to Oriphiel, who has so far felt along the gums of three unfortunate souls and come up empty. They both pointedly ignore the gurgling in the throat of the last woman, and the blood frothing over her mottled lips.

The other angels are not as affected as Castiel or Oriphiel. Haziel, Umabel, Omael and Ambriel have rooted around in rotten mouths without hesitation and come up with coins. Liwet was almost eager to touch the abominations and dig up their secrets, and Castiel suspects she is only interested in a new form of punishment- Liwet has always been a creature of fire and brimstone, old world old testament and ready to smite. Paschar is studying the mass of ex-humanity in a detached, uncaring manner close to intellectual interest. This is more worrying to Castiel than Liwet's curiosity.

Verchiel walks forward and places his buffalo nickel in Charon's palm (for it is Charon, a Hell-guard bitter and old as the worst of them, and Castiel pities the poor people who imagine he'll take them to a better place). The rest of the angels follow, filling his palm with coins ancient and shiny-new, pirate treasure, Greek artifact and a copper penny from 1965. Castiel boards the boat last, placing the second of the silver dollars in Charon's hand. The angels are crowded close together in this boat-like beast, and it would be funny if it wasn't so sad, when Charon lifts his hand to his shriveled drawn-tight lips and empties the coins into his mouth. Castiel can see them slither down his throat, making patterns under the skin.

Charon sits. He lifts two oars and the oar locks are fleshy fingers growing from the boat. Charon begins to row. The angels are silent. The grey water, originally the consistency of weak tea, seems to become thicker the farther they travel. It's been long enough that the shore has receded past the horizon when the oars seem to be moving through molasses, the surface wrinkling with each pull of the oar. They do not slow- Charon is stronger than his flaking branch-like limbs would have you believe. Castiel begins to think he sees dark shapes moving under the molasses, but he cannot be sure it is not a trick of the Hell-light, dark clouds storming overhead like a ballet.

In Hell, everything is like something else and that's what's unsettling. Nothing is simply itself, and you can never be sure whether you're really here or you're dreaming. Castiel realizes the concept of dreaming has bubbled up from behind his eyes and he pushes it back down again. Jimmy seems complacent, perhaps because he has even less desire to experience Hell than Castiel does.

Rocks start to jut out from the water on either side of the boat, delineating a strict path through the increasingly inky sea. Soon they start to curve overhead and soon they have created a seamless cavern. The muted Hell-light has given way to complete pitch dark. Even with his angelic capabilities Castiel cannot see his hand in front of his face. Without the voices of heaven to guide him and with his grace ebbing weak even as he lingers on the edge of this place, not even at the first level, he feels alone. _This is what it must feel like to be human_ , Castiel thinks, and he quashes the thought before a tiny _yes_ can bubble up from inside him somewhere. Castiel reaches out and feels the eight graces around him, steady in their light, and almost breathes a sigh of relief. He is still here. The other angels are still here. It is not even the first level of Hell. Keep it together, Castiel.

Being an angel in Hell is not like being an angel in Heaven or on Earth. Here, he feels as weak as a mortal.

The darkness begins to ebb, near imperceptibly at first, but after a few minutes Castiel is sure it is getting lighter. At the farthest edge of his vision is a pinprick of light, and as the boat moves they hit a wall of heat. Verchiel murmurs low in Enochian, so only the angels can hear-

“Welcome to the flames of Hell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The structure of Hell in this fic is based on how Dante structured his afterworlds in his Divine Comedy, that is, 9+1. A lot of other things in this fic, including the title, are borrowed from the Inferno. My hat is off to you, Dante, you crazy motherfucker.


End file.
